1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator body structure, and more particularly, to a refrigerator barrier structure which can enlarge effective spaces of a freeze chamber and a refrigerating chamber.
2. Background of the Related Art
In general, the refrigerator is provided with a body which forms an outer appearance of the refrigerator, and components for conducting a refrigerating cycle, such as compressor, evaporator, condenser, expansion valve, and etc. The refrigerator body not only forms the outer appearance of the refrigerator, but also insulates the freeze chamber and the refrigerating chamber from outside.
A prior art refrigerator body structure will be explained with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. The prior art refrigerator body is provided with an outer case 10 for forming an outer surface of the refrigerator, inner cases 20a and 20b for forming inner surfaces of the refrigerator, and a barrier 30 between the inner cases 20a and 20b for separating the freeze chamber 100 and the refrigerating chamber 200. There are doors 110 and 210 on a front surface of the refrigerating chamber 100 and the freeze chamber 200, there are gaskets 115 and 215 in inside surfaces of the doors 110 and 210 for sealing and insulating, and there is a metal plate 32 on a front surface of the barrier 30. An insulating material is stuffed in a space formed by the outer case 10 and the inner case 20a and 20b and an inside surface of the barrier 30. In detail, polyurethane foam is stuffed in the space formed by the outer case 10 and the inner cases 20a and 20b. However, the inside surface of the barrier is stuffed, not with polyurethane foam, but with Styrofoam 40 formed to a required size and shaped in advance, because the barrier 30 should have a cold air supply passage(not shown) for supplying a cold air heat exchanged in the evaporator mounted in a rear side of the freeze chamber 100 and a cold air feed back passage(not shown) for feeding back the air relatively heated in a heat exchange in the refrigerating chamber 200. If the styrofoam insulating material having none of the cold air supply passage and the cold air feed back passage formed therein in advance is not used, separate ducts for use as the cold air supply passage and the cold air feed back passage should be provided inside of the barrier 30, before an inside of the barrier 30 is stuffed with polyurethane.
However, the stuffing of styrofoam 40 of a size and form inside of the barrier 30 in the related art refrigerator barrier structure has the following problems.
First, the styrofoam has a poor insulating property compared to polyurethane. Therefore, the styrofoam insulating material 40 should be thick for securing an adequate insulating performance, that results in a thick barrier 30. That is, the thicker barrier 30 results in a reduced freeze chamber 100 and a refrigerating chamber 200, that drops a spatial efficiency of the refrigerator.
Second, because the styrofoam insulating material 40 is more expensive than the polyurethane the use of styrofoam pushes up a production cost of the refrigerator. Accordingly, in order to solve the problem, a method is suggested, in which a polyurethane insulating film is formed in the barrier 30. In this instance, separate cold air feed back duct and the like are provided in advance before polyurethane is stuffed between the outer case 10 and the inner cases 20a and 20b.
However, such a method has the following problems.
Even the stuffing of the barrier space with polyurethane can not reduce a thickness of the barrier below a limit, because a space for close contact of gaskets for the refrigerating chamber and the freeze chamber should be secure on a front surface of the barrier. That is, in the related art method, even if polyurethane which has a good insulating property is used, enlarging effective spaces of the refrigerating chamber and the freeze chamber has been difficult since a thickness of the barrier should be kept greater than a certain limit for close contact of the gaskets. Moreover, the cold air ducts are deformed by a foam pressure during foaming.